Spotlight: Justice’ comes at last in Brown case

Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara says the odds were against him when he stepped up to prosecute Delamar Brown last year for killing two Utica men in August 2004.

ROCCO LaDUCA

UTICA – Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara says the odds were against him when he stepped up to prosecute Delamar Brown last year for killing two Utica men in August 2004.

In two previous trials in Oneida County Court, jurors could not decide whether Brown was guilty of shooting Ricky Powell and Brian West to death in Cornhill.

By the time it was McNamara’s turn to prosecute, one of the key witnesses had been charged with lying on the stand during an earlier trial.

But after deliberating for four days, 12 jurors reached a verdict in September 2006 that had proven elusive to the victims’ families for more than two years: Brown, 28, was found guilty of two counts of murder.

Once the verdict was read, West’s aunt Linda March simply whispered in McNamara’s ear, “Thank you. Thank you. The Lord put you on Earth for this reason. Thank you,” McNamara recalled.

Brown was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison, and today Democratic DA candidate McNamara considers that conviction one of his proudest moments as a prosecutor.

“That’s why I do this job: I gave them justice,” McNamara said. “I couldn’t give them their child back, but that is the closest I could get.”

That trial was the hardest case McNamara handled in his life, he said, requiring all the knowledge McNamara had accumulated by prosecuting hundreds of drug cases and more than 20 murder cases during a 15-year career.

“That took everything I learned from being in the DA’s office until that day,” McNamara said. “That’s why I’ve always said you need to have experience to do this job.”

McNamara said he questions whether his opponent for district attorney, attorney David Longeretta, has the same experience to understand the dynamics of cases like this one.

In response, the Republican challenger said the case was mismanaged from the start. Any problems between witnesses and the previous prosecutor should have been addressed before it ever went to trial the first time, Longeretta said.